A few asteroids from 28th Sept 2013

[lukebl]

Had an evening tracking down a few asteroids and taking some astrometric measurements of them. Only specks of light, but they fascinate me and there's loads of them. Here's a few quick animations of some of them. Each frame was approximately 60 seconds long, and taken about 2-3 hours apart. Noisy images, but I wasn't trying to win any prizes!

SXVF-H9 cam, 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian.

Firstly, here's 14.7 magnitude 1930 Lucifer. Approximately 1.68 AU distant. Discovered on October 29, 1964 by E. Roemer at Flagstaff.

Here's unnamed 15953, magnitude 15.2. Approximately 1.16 AU distant.  Discovered on January 25, 1998 by Takao Kobayashi at Ōizumi Observatory. Apparently he's discovered more than 2000 asteroids! The galaxy above the asteroid is the 12.5 magnitude spiral NGC7683.

And here's 14th magnitude 541 Deborah. Approximately 1.83 AU distant.  Discovered by Max Wolf on August 4, 1904.

[Stargazer33]

That is very interesting.

I presume that you don't wait for the 2-3 hours but look at/image other things and then go back to your original target. Are these crops to match the star field in the background and highlight the asteroid or are they full frame. If so your goto is very accurate!

[lukebl]

Yes, I was busy looking at other stuff in between! I submit my asteroid measurements to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard, and they require at least two measurements per object in an evening, so I try to get some captures a couple of hours apart to give them time to have moved a measurable distance. Quite proud of the fact that I now have an official IAU Observatory code (G28) along with such greats as Palomar, Greenwich and Aricebo, but I am sure there are plenty of others amongst members of this forum.

I did crop the images a bit as they didn't quite align. Laziness, really. I could have aligned them better, but it was getting late and couldn't be bothered!

[LukeSkywatcher]

Great stuff. I'd love to have a go at observing them but i really dont think i have the technical skill to find them or the patience to observe them over a period of time to actually see them move.

[SkyJamie]

These are great Luke and cool that your contributing to the MPC at Harvard

[Bukko]

Nice one, Luke,

It's amazing what we can manage to capture from our back gardens with a little patience and some effort.

It must give quite a buzz posting astrometric data to Harvard.

I stumbeled upon a couple of them earlier this year, I was surprised how relatively small they were, considering the distances.

What's the smallest one you have managed to capture ?

Gordon.

[nmoushon]

Those are amazing! Great job.

[WaveSoarer]

Very nice work.